Attack Mistletoe: A Christmas Tale
by bookworm708
Summary: Blaise is a bore at his own Christmas party and Hermione Malfoy and Co. set out to exact a fitting revenge...Theo is a Scrooge and we find out why...fic is set in "A Spell Gone Awry" universe, so reading that first helps!


**A/N: This is for GrangerEnchanted's Christmas Challenge! I'm using Prompt #3, "Who knew Mistletoe could be used in such an interesting fashion?" I've decided to put this story in the "A Spell Gone Awry" universe, so if you haven't read that it might be a little confusing, but it's not totally necessary to read it. However, it IS necessary for ASGA readers to read this! (insert evil laugh here) Anyway, the fic takes place during Christmas holidays of 6****th**** year when Hermione Malfoy and the rest of the Pureblood Playgroup are having one of their parties. **

For the very first time, Isabella Zabini had left her only son, Blaise, alone for Christmas. She had felt terrible about leaving him alone, but her new boyfriend, François, had already booked a non-refundable three-week stay at the most exclusive wizarding resort in Morocco for the Christmas holidays. Her only consolation was that Blaise had agreed to her insisting that he invite not just Theo, but all his lovely friends over to spend the holidays with him. And Blaise had done just that.

Right now it was Christmas Eve and the four of Blaise's "lovely" friends were hanging out at his large London townhouse, along with every popular wizard and witch from fifth year to those recently graduated from Hogwarts. The party had started several hours ago, and it was definitely in full swing.

The new Celestina Warbeck song was floating out of the enchanted speakers strung around the edges of the main room and the majority of the teenagers were dancing to the slower ballad. The only light came from the twinkling candles that had been enchanted to float near the ceiling. The dining room off through a side door had been transformed into a festive buffet and opposite that another door in the main room lead to a sitting room with a large number of plush couches that had been charmed to deep scarlet and forest green.

In fact, the whole townhouse was rather heavily decorated for the holidays, although Blaise had really had no hand in that. He and Theo had been playing a leisurely game of wizarding chess two days ago when Hermione, Pansy, and Daphne had Floo'ed directly into his bedroom. Startled to see them a day and a half early, Blaise had wondered aloud what they were doing there.

"_You can't honestly expect to have a Christmas party in the state your house is right now, can you?" Hermione had asked, teasingly._

"_We came to decorate!" Pansy added excitedly. "I brought Mipsy and Toodle!" she said, naming her personal house-elves._

_Daphne had dropped a kiss on Blaise's cheek, which he returned, and then had promptly dropping down on the couch next to Theo._

"_What about you, Daph? Concerned about Blaise's hostessing abilities as well?" Theo snickered, wrapping an arm around her shoulder._

_Daphne sniffed indignantly. "I don't decorate. But I wasn't going to let the Wonder Twins here loose on you and Beezie without me to protect you."_

_Hermione and Pansy didn't even bat an eye in her direction as they were already dictating a list of instructions to Mipsy, Toodle, and the Zabini's London house-elf, Jotson._

_Blaise sat down on the other side of Daphne and winced at the intense looks in Hermione and Pansy's faces. He loved his friends fiercely, but he also knew that when the girls got a plan in their head, Hermione in particular, it was impossible to alter their course. Daphne, at least, couldn't give a flying fuck about some of their more ridiculous schemes._

"_Perhaps we can just pop over to your house until it's time for the party? Your parents are even there, right?" Blaise asked Theo hopefully._

"_Not a chance in Hades, mate," Theo responded curtly. "I don't care if they're there or not. I'm not going back because you can't handle a little tinsel."_

And what a lot of tinsel it had ended up being. To their credit, Blaise could grudgingly admit that Hermione and Pansy had done a stellar job giving his townhouse a holiday cheer that was adding considerably to the atmosphere of the party. From the growing noise level, it was evident that all the young wizards and witches really were enjoying themselves. Not that they didn't normally know how to enjoy themselves, but the girls had really outdone themselves this time.

Oddly, Blaise noticed that many teens were beginning to clump near the doorways in-between the main room. They were perfectly nice doorways and all, but he was rapidly becoming very curious about the allure of a doorway when there were perfectly lovely rooms on both sides. The curiosity soon became overwhelming and Blaise stood from his seat to go and investigate.

"Keep your knickers on, I'll be right back," he shot at Theo, who had looked at him accusingly. While the five Slytherins were incredibly close, Theo still didn't look incredibly pleased to be left only in the company of three girls who were in a heated and uninterruptable discussion of what every other witch at the party was wearing.

Blaise reached the doorway and the growing crowd that was jostling each other as if to jockey into a better position for something…but what? Suddenly, he noticed that the majority of people were looking upward, so he directed his gaze there as well. What he saw was a mass of twinkly green sparks that were looming overhead in what appeared to Blaise as a menacing fashion. He turned and glared over in the direction of those who had decorated his home and were surely responsible for this. Sure enough, Pansy and Hermione were smiling back at him, waving gaily and trying their best to look innocent.

Apprehensive at what the girls may have conjured up this time, Blaise ventured another gaze upward and found that the green sparkles were congregating into a smaller lump.

"It's going that way," an almost-too-blond-to-be-in-Ravenclaw fifth-year squealed.

The crowd surged in the direction that she had pointed and the girls that were in the center of the mass started giggling elatedly. Blaise glanced upward once more and saw that the sparks were clustering, clustering, into what appeared to be a small sprig of a plant?

Sure enough, the sparks finished bunching and, with a slight tinkling that sounded rather like sleighbells, transformed into an actual spring of mistletoe floating several feet in the air. Everyone near it took an almost unconscious step backward until there were only two people left, those directly under the mistletoe. Those two people were Astoria Greengrass and Vincent Crabbe.

It was obvious how Astoria had managed to elbow her way to the center of the crowd. Astoria was every inch a junior Daphne, only she was generally less liked…except by the male populace, as she was decidedly more free and less discreet than Daphne. She had looked rather pleased to have won the spotlight for this moment, but then she had seen Crabbe and looked rather crestfallen. Crabbe, for his part, seemed to be there quite by accident. It appeared that Crabbe hadn't really the foggiest notion of what was going on, he had just followed the crowd and even with the pushing and shoving Crabbe's girth had not been budged from the prime spot.

The crowd had begun to murmur expectantly, so Astoria giggled embarrassedly and wrapped her arms around Crabbe's beefy neck and pressed her lips to his with a resounding smack. He initially looked alarmed, clearly still having no idea of the significance of where he was standing, but it only took a moment for him to respond to Astoria's attentions and he wrapped his arms around her waist, and in a move almost too deft for him, slid them down until he was firmly grasping her bottom. Astoria gasped, shocked, into his lips and began frantically wiggling to disentangle herself.

"Prick," she snapped at him, eyes flashing and flounced her way in the direction of the loo, a group of sixth-year Slytherin look-alikes trailing after her. The rest of the crowd was alternately clapping or laughing gleefully, depending on their opinion of the younger Greengrass.

"Fine piece of arse, that," Crabbe said proudly to Astoria's retreating form, still honestly looking quite flummoxed as to what had just transpired.

"Brilliant, mate…bloody brilliant," Goyle clapped him on the back in admiration.

The sprig of mistletoe had mysteriously vanished and now the mass of green sparkles had reappeared and was floating out of the room.

"There it goes!" the same Ravenclaw girl squealed and with that the crowd flowed out of the doorway, moving rowdily en masse after it.

Blaise remained behind, then stalked back toward his friends, three of who were crying with laughter.

"Bloody brilliant!" Theo managed to croak out in a pitch-perfect imitation of Goyle's deep, bewildered voice as Blaise neared.

He had been trying to remain firm and chastise the girls for making his party into a ridiculous snogging game (not to say Blaise didn't enjoy snogging, but he was discreet…at least when it came to his own affairs), but lost it when he saw Daphne's lack of laughter and irritated expression. He raised his eyebrow at her expectantly.

"Stupid slag," she offered primly.

This set the others off in another round of laughter and Blaise as well. He threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat and flung himself down on the couch next to Theo, opposite the girls.

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves," he said, attempting one last shot at severity. "The majority of Hogwarts, not to mention all those damned gossip rags, already think we're a bunch of naughty sex fiends. I'd rather my mum not find out about this party at all, especially not in the paper with the headline, 'Zabini House Den for Slytherin Sex Cult.'"

"Oh, don't be a bore, Blaise, dear," Pansy giggled, wiping tears from the corner of her eyes.

"Oh, yes, Blaise, you do need to have a bit more fun," Hermione agreed, the mischievous and intelligent glint in her hazel eyes setting off alarm bells in Blaise's head. She stood up, smoothed down her voluminous jade green dress robe and then yanked Pansy to her feet. Next, she offered a hand to Daphne, who rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be pulled up.

"Not you too!" Theo groaned in mock horror.

"It's more fun than here," she shot back. "You're unbearable to be around this time of year, Teddy, dear."

Daphne suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, as the rest of them became deathly silent. The sound of the crowd clamoring for more snogging faded drastically as everyone turned to look at Theo, whose face was turning an angry red.

Theo rose from his chair like a rocket, and Blaise stood beside him so that all five Slytherins were standing in a vaguely circular shape, staring at each other. The awful silence seemed to last forever, though in reality it was probably only around ten seconds. Theo had been staring into space at no one particular and Blaise could tell that he was trying his best to not cry. However, he seemed to have lost the battle and he strode quickly from room in the direction of the guestroom he had been staying in with his head tilted to obscure his probably quite damp face.

"Damn you and your abnormally large mouth, Daphne," Blaise barked, more in frustration about the situation than in actual anger towards the strawberry blonde.

Daphne didn't know that though, if her stricken face was any indication, as she herself burst into tears and leaned into the protective embrace of the girls on either side of her.

"I didn't think!" she wailed quietly, muffled against the tangled mass of Hermione's brown curls.

"Of course you didn't," Pansy reassured her, patting her soothingly on the back. "It's the first Christmas since he told us the whole story, so of course you could have forgotten."

Ever since second year or so, Theo had always been rather a Scrooge around Christmastime. He had appeared at Blaise's door during the winter holidays that year, visibly upset, and stayed there for the duration of the break. Even though Blaise was normally the nosiest of the Slytherin friends, he had felt like this was something different and waited for Theo to come to him about it. He had never even told the girls.

And so the girls had teased him for every consecutive year, calling him Scrooge and whatnot for his decided lack of Christmas cheer. And every year, without any questions, Theo had come home with Blaise for the holidays. Luckily, Isabella never minded. It was last year, fifth year, when Theo had finally cracked.

Pansy had been teasingly trying to place a Santa hat on Theo's head when he had caught her wrist and said to her, quite fiercely, "sod off, you bint!" The entire group had been aghast at his viciousness and had sat in uncomfortable silence, waiting for Theo to offer up an explanation.

What an explanation it had been. In that second year of Hogwarts, Theo had been on Christmas holidays, out shopping with his parents one evening. His father had gone off with some mates for a drink and Theo had stayed with his mother. When it got dark, however, Sophia had sent Theo to track down Darren. Theo had searched through his father's favorite pub, but had found no trace of him or his mates. When he had exited the pub, something had caught his eye in the alley that changed Theo's life.

It had taken a good deal of prompting to get the story to go much further than that, but Blaise and the girls could all tell that this was something that needed to be told. Finally, Theo had continued, wringing his hands together nervously. Apparently, on their way out of the pub, after getting completely pissed, Darren and his mates had encountered a Muggle man, probably homeless from the look of him, who had somehow managed to get into Diagon Alley. When Theo found them, the Muggle was spinning in circles several feet in the air. 12-year-old Theo had watched in silent horror as they had dropped the man to the ground with a sickening crack and performed a number of revolting curses that Theo now refused to speak of. Finally, Darren, Theo's own father, was the one to Avada the Muggle, leaving his corpse in the alley. Theo had ran back to his mother before the drunk men had spotted him, telling Sophia he was unable to locate his father.

The stunned silence that followed Theo's story had been misinterpreted by the miserable boy and he had shouted angrily at them, telling them that he didn't care what they thought, Muggles were people too, and they didn't deserve that…he wouldn't be a Death Eater, no one could make him. Blaise could admit to being comforted himself when Hermione and the other girls had rushed to assure him that they too did not believe in the ways of their parents and Theo himself had sagged in visible relief – a weight lifted.

Since that point, a year ago now, the five had been closer than ever before, their relationship solidified by the secret they shared. And while it was always there, under the surface, they rarely spoke of it as a group. The combination of that, and the habit of many years of teasing Theo about his holiday grump had lead to Daphne's slip.

Blaise reached over and patted the top of Daphne's head comfortingly.

"I'll go and speak with him Dee, I'm sure he understands," he reassured her.

"No," she said, her head snapping up decisively. "I should be the one to do it…I did this. I'll stay with him until he's okay, you just go on and enjoy the party," Daphne finished with a half-hearted wink in the direction of Hermione.

"If you're sure," Hermione replied hesitantly, releasing her hold on the taller girl.

Daphne bent nearer to Hermione and whispered something delicately into her ear that had the so-not-a-virgin Hermione blushing.

"But, Theo…" she trailed off helplessly, staring with wide eyes at Daphne.

"Go on," Daphne nudged her. "Go on and have some of that Christmas cheer you like so much, babydoll."

Hermione sighed and nodded as Daphne backed out of the room in the direction that Theo had fled. She then grabbed a bewildered Pansy's hand and began to drag out of the room in the opposite direction.

"I'll just wait here then, yeah?" Blaise called after the last of his friends' retreating backs.

Of course, it hadn't taken long for Blaise to become dreadfully bored and he had gotten up in search of refreshment. He had just poured himself a cup of punch, which tasted as though several wizards had decided to spike it without tasting it for themselves first. That was okay with Blaise, though, as he certainly needed something to take him mind off the depressing turn this night had taken so far.

"Just my luck, two in one night," a voice cooed in his ear.

Blaise turned, startled, to find Astoria Greengrass alarming close to him. She pointed upward to the sparkly green mistletoe hanging directly above his head. Astoria quickly twined her arms around him and it was a good deal tighter than she had done to Vince…a Zabini was much desirable than a Crabbe. Blaise tried to enjoy the kiss – it had been awhile since his last liaison and Astoria was attractive, he could recall flirting with her a time or two – but the sound of a gathering crowd prompted him to disentangle himself from the amorous girl.

Blaise smiled at Astoria, but not too invitingly, hoping that she would leave him alone for the rest of the evening. She was a decent enough kisser, but the resemblance to Daphne was enough to make his insides twist uncomfortably. Astoria smiled back and flounced off, amid the cheering and wolf-whistles, no doubt going to back to the loo with her entourage.

Blaise turned around and came face to face with Millicent Bulstrode.

"Hi, Millie, how are you?" he asked as politely as possible, feeling it would be rude to simply step around the girl.

"Um," she managed to squeak out, her face getting pink.

Blaise looked at her, feeling rather confused.

Millie pointed a shaking finger upward.

There was that blasted mistletoe, still hanging above his head.

_Those absolutely dirty little witches, _Blaise thought furiously. _They want me to be less of a bore, ha! How could they possibly think that forcing me to snog all the witches here would be a good joke? I'd pay to do that…not that I have to,_ he thought, preening a bit.

Blaise stepped closer to the still nervous Millie, who was practically trembling. He placed his hand on the small of her back and dipped her down, low to the ground, and placed a passionate kiss on her lips. When he brought her back up and set her feet back on the ground Millie was no longer pink in the fast, but now bright red.

"Um," she mumbled again, before turning around and pushing her way through the still-growing crowd.

Blaise looked through the corner of his eye to see if he could find the devious witches who had obviously set him up. When he looked straight forward he was dismayed to find an actual line forming in front of him, directly in the path of where he had planned to exit the room.

_Shite._ Maybe this was a better trick than he had originally released. Even though Blaise loved to spread good gossip about the scandalous doing of others, Blaise generally liked to keep his affairs private and this was anything but. Not to mention, some of the girls in this line had boyfriends, for Merlin's sake. He could throw a punch as well as anyone, but from his count that was more fights in one night than he preferred to pick, especially without Theo to back him up.

Calculating quickly, Blaise made a decision. Trying to sound as manly as possible, he cleared his throat and spoke in his most confident voice.

"I hope everyone is enjoying the party. However, I have to…step out for a moment, but I'll be back momentarily," Blaise said. The moment the last syllable was fully out of his mouth he turned and fled for the nearest exit.

"But it was my turn next!" the blonde, squealing Ravenclaw whined to anyone left in the now laughing crowd who would listen.

Having safely locked himself in the library, Blaise sighed in relief. Well, that was one disaster averted, anyway.

The sudden sound of snickering caused Blaise to look up. Over the edge of his mother's favorite desk (from Fredrick? Fredrico? Fred? Husband number three, anyway), he could see a head of chocolate curls.

"I see you, Herms," he called out, knowing she would be unable to resist the irritating nickname.

"Don't call me that!"

Sure enough, Hermione shot straight up from her hiding place behind the desk. When she saw Blaise's smirk, she quickly realized her mistake.

"Oh, shite."

"Where's Pansy then?" Blaise asked, looking around curiously.

"I don't know," Hermione replied petulantly, obviously put out at having been discovered so quickly. "We split up on account on not knowing how mad you would be."

"You think it would bother me to snog a load of girls?"

"Not at first. That was the brilliance, you dolt. How many did you even end up snogging before running in here to hide?"

"Well. Two."

Hermione snickered again.

"Pansy owes me three Galleons on that one, she thought you'd have the balls to get at least three."

"I could still get one more!" Blaise protested.

"How?"

"I still have the damn thing, don't I?" he asked, indicating to the sprig still cheerfully floating above his head.

"Yeah? So? Who are you going to snog?" Hermione asked flippantly.

"You."

With that, Blaise sprang forward and latched on to Hermione's wrist so that she would be unable to get away and he stepped around the large desk.

"Blaise Zabini!"

Hermione had the nerve to look mildly outraged at her own trick being used against her. Undeterred, Blaise leaned in toward her lips, but she backed away, as far as his grip on her arm would allow.

"What's wrong?" he asked gently, now concerned by the look on her face.

"I just feel so bad about Theo. How can we do something like this when he's so miserable?"

"Princess, is that all you're worried about? You didn't do anything wrong! I'm sure Daphne's got him back to his regular grumpy instead of extra grumpy self already by now. Merlin, you had me worried that there was something wrong with me!"

Hermione giggled.

Blaise frowned.

"Not really doing wonders for a man's ego, sweetheart."

"No, it's just…this was Daphne's idea in the first place," Hermione explained.

"Are you trying to tell me you didn't come with this yourself? Not that I don't love Greengrass and all, but you are generally the brains of the operation."

"Okay, it was my idea. But Daphne added the sticking charm."

"And what does that mean?"

"Now that you've touched me, you can't let go until you kissed me. It's extra-special, floating, disappearing, sticking, sparkling mistletoe, see?" she finished helpfully.

Blaise raised his eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that!" Hermione said indignantly. "You would have found out for yourself if you would have stayed out there longer, you great big baby," she said, punching him on the arm.

"Right then, so a quick peck, we find Pansy, and then we can go check on Theo," Blaise said briskly.

But when he leaned in once more to kiss her, Hermione pulled away again.

"You don't want to kiss me?" she asked in a small voice.

"Bloody hell, you silly chit, make up your mind!" Blaise yelled in frustration.

"I haven't changed my mind!" she shouted back defensively. "I just don't want to do wrong by Theo either. Of course, I want to kiss you!"

Blaise stared at her for a moment critically, and then picked her up in his arms in one swoop.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked.

"Trying to carry you," Blaise groaned. "But all this fabric is making it sodding difficult. What are you keeping underneath that thing anyway?" he asked poking at her dress robes with his nose, as his hands were currently occupied.

"Nothing you'll see tonight, Mr. Zabini," Hermione teased. "You're awfully forward for someone who's only been promised a kiss."

"Ahh, but you didn't specify where the kiss should be, now did you?" he asked, smiling down at her roguishly.

"Alright, that's it! You put me down right now!" she giggled.

"The lady's wish is my command," Blaise said gallantly, tossing her down on his favorite couch in the east corner of the library that had been his intended destination all along.

Unfortunately, Blaise had forgotten the small detail of the sticking charm and instead of watching with satisfaction as Hermione flopped down on the couch, he found himself suddenly yanked and sprawled on top of her. His face was so very, very close to her and he could see the tiny flecks of gold in her hazel eyes. Her dark brown hair fanned out around her, the wavy curls that had fallen nearest to her face were trembling back and forth with the force of Blaise's breath. In return, Blaise could feel Hermione's warm breath that smelt of candy canes blowing gently on his own face.

And with that, Blaise kissed her.

It wasn't like he remembered. He had kissed Hermione on the lips several times before, a couple times drunk and once or twice for a game or a dare. But snogging for a game was nothing this. That had been short and in the view of others. Here they were thankfully, blessedly, utterly alone and Blaise intended to savor every minute of it. Hermione's lips were soft and gentle and while he had initiated the kiss she was now peppering his lips with repeated gentle, yet feverish kisses as if she was afraid he would up and disappear in the next moment. Her hands were knotted in the fabric of the white dress shirt he was wearing under his ropes, holding him fast to her.

Wanting more of her, Blaise carefully rolled them on the couch so they were now both laying on their sides on the couch, her secured wedged in and in no danger of falling off, and now in now danger of him squishing her into the couch either. Blaise stroked her hair and brought her nearer to him, holding her close for a longer, more heated kiss. She mewled in pleasure from the extended contact and gripped him tighter.

After what seemed like ages, Blaise finally broke contact and sighed in content. He smiled lazily and stared into her eyes as they both caught their breath. Blaise reached up and twisted a curl of chocolaty hair around his finger while he waited for Hermione to speak. It was always clear when she had something to say from the certain look of concentration that appeared on her face.

"I guess we best go find Pansy now," she whispered quickly and let out the rest of her breath in a great, whooshing sigh.

"Why?" Blaise was genuinely confused.

"Well, she had a part in this…so you'll be wanting to snog her too, right? And I owe her those three Galleons now anyway."

"Do you want me to go?" Blaise asked.

"No," Hermione answered after a moment's pause. "But-"

"Well, that's good, because I'm staying here," he cut her off, tugging on the curl that was still wrapped around his finger affectionately.

"Good," Hermione smiled at him sweetly.

Her eyes fluttered shut then, and his must have followed soon after, because before he knew it, Hermione was poking him insistently on the shoulder.

"Blaise. Wake up. Wake up. Blaise!" she whispered.

"What is it?" he managed to mumble groggily, eyes still closed.

"Look," she whispered, still tapping him.

Blaise finally mustered enough energy to open his eyes, which he had to immediately squint due to the unexpected brightness.

"What in the buggering hell?"

"The sun is rising! Oh, look, Blaise, it's so beautiful!" Hermione squealed giddily.

Blaise craned his neck to look in the direction that Hermione was pointing. Sure enough, through the east-facing window, he could see the golds, yellows, and oranges and a newly-rising sun.

"Lovely," he managed to mumble, shutting his eyes and nestling back into Hermione's shoulder and the pleasantly dark tangle of curls.

"Merry Christmas, Blaise," Hermione whispered in his ear.

_Merry Christmas, Hermione._

**A/N: This was actually inspired by a true-life secret plan that a friend and I came up with, minus the enchantments and charms, and plus a headband and some pipe cleaners. :) Merry Christmas, all, and pretty-please review! Corinne.**


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